Extract 1: Book 3, Chapter 2

It exists! he cried.
No, said OBrien.
He stepped across the room. There was a memory hole in the opposite wall. OBrien lifted
the grating. Unseen, the frail slip of paper was whirling away on the current of warm air; it was
vanishing in a flash of flame. OBrien turned away from the wall.
Ashes, he said. Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It does not exist. It never existed.
But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I remember it. You remember it.
I do not remember it, said OBrien.
Winstons heart sank. That was doublethink. He had a feeling of deadly helplessness. If he
could have been certain that OBrien was lying, it would not have seemed to matter. But it was
perfectly possible that OBrien had really forgotten the photograph. And if so, then already he
would have forgotten his denial of remembering it, and forgotten the act of forgetting. How
could one be sure that it was simple trickery? Perhaps that lunatic dislocation in the mind could
really happen: that was the thought that defeated him.
OBrien was looking down at him speculatively. More than ever he had the air of a teacher
taking pains with a wayward but promising child.
There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past, he said. Repeat it, if you
please.
Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,
repeated Winston obediently.
Who controls the present controls the past, said OBrien, nodding his head with slow
approval. Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?
Again the feeling of helplessness descended upon Winston. His eyes flitted towards the dial.
He not only did not know whether yes or no was the answer that would save him from pain; he
did not even know which answer he believed to be the true one.
OBrien smiled faintly. You are no metaphysician, Winston, he said. Until this moment
you had never considered what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does the past
exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where
the past is still happening?
No.
Then where does the past exist, if at all?
In records. It is written down.
In records. And ?
In the mind. In human memories.
In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories.
Then we control the past, do we not?

But how can you stop people remembering things? cried Winston again momentarily
forgetting the dial. It is involuntary. It is outside oneself. How can you control memory? You
have not controlled mine!
You [OBrien to Winston] believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in
its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself
into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you.
But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and
nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon
perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party
holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of
the Party.